Category: Work

I had experimented with V-Ray a bit a few months ago, but at the time it only ran on an earlier version of Cinema4D, and when it did, it felt a bit flaky. Well, I’m happy to say that it runs flawlessly on on Cinema4D R17! My product renderings never looked better. I wear aRead More

So I created this mosaic of pretty much every picture I ever took at work using a program called Mazaika. The image was constructed from more than 4,500 pictures of all the people and products that came together to enable us to create the amazing Ion Torrent S5. The image turned out to be quiteRead More

I often do not know exactly what I’m rendering. I just try to make things look good. Unfortunately, our products will never look like this on our web site. Our “real” real product shots are required to have a pure white background and a reflective white foreground à la outdated Apple ads, but this isRead More

This is so much fun! I set up my photo booth at an event at work yesterday. Once again, the results do not disappoint. Who can resist self-portraits like these? (Yes, we occasionally do have some fun at work.) Photo Booth continues to amaze me. I have never found a better way to get nearlyRead More

After years of helping people for free, I finally started my consultancy. I hope to offer lots of services, (Linux, 3D design, photography, etc.) but my first four customers are all paying for Linux and web work. A great start! No, I’m not leaving my full-time job. I love the people at Thermofisher – someRead More

I volunteered to shoot headshots of my coworkers a few weeks ago. Having never actually done such a thing, I realized that I’d better learn how. So, I watched a couple of YouTube videos, bought an inexpensive studio flash and umbrella, and set it up in our office hallway, where the Venetian plaster walls seemedRead More

The marketing team has decided that at least one of our product manuals should contain line art instead of photographs. I like this idea a lot, especially now that I’ve been able to spend a little time with Cinema4D’s Sketch & Toon renderer. Like everything else about Cinema4D, this tool is amazing. There are moreRead More

Some of you will remember my photo of this instrument. The photographic image is used on our website and in printed materials, and it looks pretty good. Well, starting today, I’m hoping that we’ll be replacing all of our photos with renders created with my latest addiction – V-Ray. This renderer blows away anything elseRead More

I’ll admit it certainly looks a wee bit garish and not entirely plausible at the enormous size above, but it needs to be bold to stand out on an iPad home screen, where it will be smaller than this: I’m not even sure what this App is, but I know it had to have aRead More

After many years of practice and tens of thousands of renders, this is probably the most realistic-looking 3D render I’ve ever created. And I’m not satisfied with it. This week I’ll take the plunge and get a copy of what may be the best of the “photo-realistic” renderers – V-Ray. Stand by for a comparison.Read More

Today’s eye-candy is a photograph. Well, actually, it’s five photographs combined into a focus stack. This is one of the chips that goes into the S5 and S5XL seen earlier. (It can decode your DNA, dude.) For this shot, the clear plastic flowcell has been removed exposing the extremely high-resolution sensor below. I shot thisRead More

I’m getting excellent realism with the new Cinema4D version 17. After a few refinements and a days-long render at much higher resolution, a large version of this rendering will hang on the wall of our offices in South San Francisco and Guilford, Connecticut offices. I used PhotoShop’s awesome Vanishing Point Filter to create this visualization.Read More

I’ve been asked to provide several larger-than-life renderings for one of our offices. While I’m excited about seeing my renders prominently displayed, I realize that my materials will need to be absolutely perfect if they are to stand up to scrutiny from the engineers who designed the instruments and selected the actual materials. So, it’sRead More

Another of my recent Cinema4D renders. From my company web site: The Ion PGM™ Dx System is a reliable and robust in vitro diagnostic (IVD) next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform that is designed to deliver the proven performance and simplicity of the Ion Torrent™ PGM system, while empowering clinical laboratories with the flexibility to develop molecularRead More

Now that’s it’s official, I can finally share some of the 3D work I’ve been producing for the last several months. Behold the S5! The ‘S’ is for Simplicity, Speed, Scalability… This amazing instrument has many applications. It has the potential to make the world a better place for all of us. I’m lucky toRead More

What you see is a fairly accurate view of the server room at work. If you’re interested, here’s how I created this. Note that the method I use is just one way to accomplish this. There are “easier” methods, like rendering directly inside of SketchUp with any number of snap-in renderers, (I like TheaRender) butRead More

Did you know that there are databases in the public domain with free 3D models of organic materials like DNA, enzymes and proteins? Accurate and highly detailed, these models can be downloaded from a number of sites and imported into most 3D packages, including my favorite – Cinema4D. I have no idea what I’m lookingRead More